Oct. 23—MITCHELL — The South Dakota high school football playoffs kicked off on Thursday around the state, and while it was a good night for the favorites, it was a revealing opening round nonetheless.
With an eye toward the Oct. 29 quarterfinal round, here are three impressions and thoughts as the brackets drop from 16 teams to eight:
Of the eight quarterfinalists in Class 11B, seven of them are back from last season, the most of any division that starts with a 16-team bracket. Only No. 8 seed McCook Central/Montrose is new compared to last year's field.
The seeding also shows striking similarities, most notably the same three programs in the top three, in the same order — No. 1 Elk Point-Jefferson, No. 2 St. Thomas More and No. 3 Clark/Willow Lake. Wagner and Sioux Valley will be on the road once again in the quarterfinals. Just like last year, there is one double-digit seed in the field, with No. 10 Sioux Valley earning another trip west to face STM after a 41-37 win over Rapid City Christian. Even so, none of the four quarterfinal pairings are rematches from this stage in 2025.
And while the scoring punch varies from top to bottom — STM averages twice as many points per game (45.7) as Wagner (22.9) at the extremes — defense stands out among this bunch.
The top six defenses by points per game are all still alive, plus MCM isn't far behind in ninth. Those seven all give up 16.3 points or less. Sioux Valley at 16th, allowing 26.4 points per game, is the outlier.
Being battle-tested entering postseason play is as cliche as it gets, but there was a correlation between a strong strength of schedules for lower-seeded teams and strong performances during Thursday's first round.
Across Class 11B and the three nine-man divisions, there were 10 total teams seeded 8th through 12th that also ranked in the top five by opponent win percentage in their respective classes. Of those, seven won outright on Thursday night. That list included No. 10 Kadoka Area and No. 8 Herreid/Selby Area in Class 9B, No. 8 Kimball/White Lake in Class 9A, No. 12 Sioux Falls Lutheran and No. 8 Bon Homme in Class 9AA and No. 10 Sioux Valley and No. 8 McCook Central/Montrose in Class 11B. Losses by Class 9A No. 11 De Smet and Class 9A No. 12 Lyman and Class 9B No. 12 Wolsey-Wessington push back against this trend.
Further, almost all of the winning battle-tested teams were decisive in their victories, as only one win was decided by fewer than 18 points. The average margin of victory for those teams was 23 points, and four of the seven games were blowouts of at least 27 points, or at least four scores.
For the fifth year in a row, no team seeded 1-through-4 lost in the first round in Class 11B or any of the nine-man division. This year, that extended to the top-six in each of the classes, going a collective 24-for-24.
It's not a shocker, but the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds flexed their muscles in the most lopsided matchups on paper: In six of those eight games, they were decided by 48 or more points. In Class 11B, No. 15 Mount Vernon/Plankinton gave St. Thomas More all it could handle into the fourth quarter before the No. 2 Cavaliers pulled away for a 32-16 victory. In Class 9A, No. 4 Sully Buttes won the closest game of any top-four seed playing on Thursday night, rallying late for an 18-14 win over No. 13 Corsica-Stickney.
On the other hand, no early upsets means the brackets are still strong as the postseason rolls on. A total of 10 teams in the four smallest classes of football still sport perfect records. Since adopting 1-through-16 seeding in 2021, this is the most undefeated teams remaining heading into a quarterfinal round for Class 11B and in nine-man football.
None of the 10 teams play each other in the quarterfinals, meaning they can carry their undefeated records for one more week into the semifinals. There are three each in Class 11B, Class 9A and Class 9B.
Four undefeated teams are taking on teams that are 7-2 in the quarterfinals, including 10-0 Clark/Willow Lake hosting No. 6 Wagner in Class 11B. In Class 9A, 7-2 Howard and Centerville hit the road to take on undefeated Freeman and Castlewood, respectively, and in 9B, 7-2 Colman-Egan heads to 9-0 Warner.